Broadband in every Village: Nepal's new Broadband Internet Policy address by recent FY Budget

Recent budget of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2071/72 of Nepal has addressed the reach of each and every villages in Nepal with a faster broadband service. The Government of Nepal (GoN) is most likely to practice Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) Model to establish the reach of broadband Internet services in the remote and hilly parts of the country.

This FY 071/72 will have all district headquarters connected with optical fibre broadband solution as the GoN plans to pull the fibre thru out the country. The lack of optical fibre connection in the mid-hilly regions connected with (hilly) highway have left the hilly and mountains terrain of the country with poor Internet connectivity whereas the Terai belt are all well connected with the fibre.

Banepa – Bardibas highway will have optical fibre along its way within this FY, according to MoIC Secretariat. Plus, at least 30 Community Information Centers (CIC) will be built for increasing the reach of e-Services (eGov) delivery from the Nepal Government.

The GoN has proposed an ambitious budget of 4 arba, 13 crore (4.13 billion) rupees for the development of the Information and Communication Sector in the country. This investment is the largest ever made in this field in the Nepalese history from the Government side.

As of today, the state owned telco Nepal Telecom (NT) has reached its telephony and data service to all the districts while the private company Ncell has its loyal customers in most of the remote part of the country with country’s 90% population reach all over.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC) has already aimed for the broadband penetration in Nepal within 2015. This 3-year broadband penetration project was announced in 2013 by MoIC.

The power of broadband to increase the economy and have positive impacts on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country – is all what the GoN is keen on about with this broadband policy.

The Government is also planning to merge the state owned television station – Nepal Television (NTV) and radio station – Radio Nepal so as to expand the information and communication reach of the government. The merger of these two will result in a new Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in Nepal.